Hooked: Why bad habits are hard to break

At the most basic level, dopamine has saved us from extinction by making the key elements for survival of the species - food and sex - pleasurable. Dopamine sends signals to receptors in the brain saying: this feels good.

Morley Safer: What is it, a hamburger?

Nora Volkow: It's a hamburger...

Show a hungry person a hamburger and their brain scan shows: a dopamine rush.

Nora Volkow: It just basically stimulates release of dopamine. And the more they release, the more they want the food. We always say, "Well, why do we have a problem with obesity in our society?" And I said, "My God, we're surrounded by stimuli with which we're conditioned. If you like hamburgers you may see that McDonald's yellow arches and then dopamine goes inside your brain and you want it. And you don't know why you want it.

And, Volkow has found images of alcohol and drugs produce similar signals, which the addict can't resist.

Nora Volkow: When a person is addicted, they get conditioned just like Pavlovian dogs.

During a brain scan, a cocaine addict was shown a nature scene. The image created no change in dopamine levels. The same test with a picture of someone using cocaine. Result: a marked rise in dopamine.

Nora Volkow: Here, in an addictive person, you're starting to get the conditions stimulated -

Morley Safer: Just from a photograph.

Nora Volkow: From observing. And that's why drugs are so malignant. You see a stimuli, dopamine goes up in your brain, and that in turn drives the behavior of the person to try to get the drug. And that's an unconscious thing. It's not even conscious.

Her budget reflects the urgency of the work: a billion dollars a year for a wide array of research projects. She was the first to demonstrate how cocaine can damage the brain by triggering small strokes. And she's identified a common trait most addicts share, involving receptors, the molecules that receive dopamine signals.

Nora Volkow: We're seeing consistently a reduction in the levels of these dopamine receptors, in this case heroin, alcohol, methamphetamine, cocaine, but also marijuana and cigarette smokers.

Problem is the brain just isn't wired to handle the intense high that drugs give. A kind of shutoff valve kicks in: reducing the number of receptors in the brain that receive dopamine's feel good message.

Nora Volkow: What happens with repeated administration of these drugs is that the ability of them to generate a sense of pleasure decreases and decreases and decreases. And there's a point where the person starts to take them, not to feel good. But to feel normal.

And other changes in the brain explain why so many addicts -- no matter how hard they try -- just can't quit.

Morley Safer: There is that school of thought that says, "Look, all you need is to be strong-willed. Your problem is you're weak. Show some determination and you can beat this addiction.

Nora Volkow: There are certain areas of the brain that are directly implicated in our capacity to exert free will. The frontal cortex is one of them: crucial, crucial. So if drugs damage the areas of the brain that we need in order to exert free will then it's like driving a car without brakes. You don't want to hit someone. But if you don't have brakes how do you stop the car?

• « Previous Page
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page »

[apple232323]

ok guys, am i the only one thinks it is utterly ridiculous to inject oneself with a vaccine in order to cure drug addiction?

it's incredible how much the drug/vaccine industry has grown the past 10 years. it seems like they have a vaccine for everything now and they want to inject you with all of them. babies, small children, pregnant women are all getting way too many vaccines compared to when i was growing up.

i am not disagreeing with the science of vaccines. i believe that if used correctly, vaccines could be beneficial. unfortunately, i do not believe that drug companies and those invested in said companies are looking out for our best interest.

i believe that vaccines are a means of purposefully making the general public sick. it's a way of ensuring that the medical industrial complex has customers for life. think about it.

if they were to cure all disease they would have no business. It is not in their best interest to cure any diseases, only to temporally alleviate the symptoms so that we are constantly dependent upon their vaccines, drugs and bogus, expensive medical care.

Bill Gates is perhaps the biggest offender of them all. His gigantic push to vaccinate all of Africa and the world, is serving only to reduce the population, which he is on record as stating during a Ted speech. If he really wanted to help Africa, he'd give them infrastructure, fresh clean water, roads, schools, factories, bridges, technology - vaccines is the last thing that Africa needs.

[demineus]

ibogaine cures all addictions and has no addictive properties!!

[janushorus]

In our "Capitalist world",there is an addiction nobody consider as an addiction or blind there self about.The deadliest of all: MONEY.
Just look at the amount of suicide it generate, starting with the 1929 crash.Sens of ethics disappear with "cold cash".And don't forget the concept of "credit cards".Its impact on our environment(Oil spill,CO2....).Put anybody in the MRI,just tell them they'll receive $5000 for participation on this research...

[expatriate2]

I smoked for 30 years, two packs a day. I knew it was suicide but it was a really tough habit. Then one day I just looked at a cigarette and asked myself what kind of a person am I if that small things was stronger than me. I threw it away. That was 13 years ago and I have never smoked a cigarette since. Sometimes you need to challenge yourself and take control of who you are and who you want to be.

[SuperFrostMonkey]

She's smart.

[peakhappiness]

The piece of the puzzle that is missing here is teaching people to enhance their own feelings of pleasure by modifying their brain's function using brainwave biofeedback. We have developed a system called the Peak BrainHappiness Trainer that actually can be used to train people to enhance their feelings of happiness, pleasure,satisfaction, and appreciation directly by affecting their own dopamine system. In a study done at the University of Louisville, we found that this Neureka! neurofeedback training enhanced people's happiness by over 30% and it lasted for at least 4 months. We have applied for funding from NIDA for continued work in this promising area, but have not been successful due to regrettable lack of understanding and nit-picking by their study sections. We continue to look for funding to do this work at leading edge addiction treatment programs, We want to demonstrate that we can improve the addict's feelings and decrease the likelihood that he/she will use drugs again.

[fantomas4]

I personally quit drinking over a year ago because I saw how it was affecting my life. I'm just afraid that if things like alcoholism are classified as diseases, it will become an excuse for many not to exert their willpower to overcome their problems. I'm so happy now that I'm sober. Life feels more rewarding everyday. If I would have thought that I had a disease, perhaps that would have discouraged me from taking control of my life.

[jammercat1]

It has been considered a disease for quite some time. "In 1952, the AMA suggested that alcoholism was a disease, and in 1983, the National Council on Alcoholism (with the help of Marty Mann) suggested that this was no longer a concept, rather, they began to talk about the disease model."

[fantomas4]

All I'm really saying is that the powe of one's mind is greater than a lot seem to think. Calling alcoholism a disease seems like using the term disease as a crutch to me.

[lyonsnyc]

Yes, fantyomas4. Exactly.

To jammercat1 below: that chronic drug taking has been considered "a disease for quite some time" doesn't make it true. But you know something's not right when people employ the phrase, "disease model". Disease MODEL? Is there a disease "model" for diabetes, or is diabetes simply a disease? Of course the chronic use of a recreational drug brings about changes in the brain. So what? The fact remains that drugs exist outside the body and that one must employ free will -- "I want a drink"; "I want to smoke"; "I no longer want to drink"; "I no longer want to smoke" -- in order to ingest, or to not ingest, these substances. The "compulsion" that long-term drug users speak of has more to do with problems in living and a misguided pursuit of meaning and pleasure, and less to do with the alleged "commands" of the brain to seek out these chemicals.

In an earlier comment I posted elsewhere in this thread, I said that chronic drug use "strengthens" free will. I'm thinking now that "strengthened" isn't the best word. I think something like "amplifies" or "sharpens" would be better. I know of a long-time smoker who goes through hoops to find cheap cigarettes, and even goes through the trouble of securing inexpensive tobacco from Canada. All that planning and coordinating points to a focused and dedicated mind (free will) hard at work on a specific project -- though, to be sure, this work is all in pursuit of a poison, the inhalation of which she derives meaning and pleasure of an ill-advised kind.

[se777ens]

Thanks for your comments they have given me strength to try. Thinking that it is a disease broke my willpower but I think you may have helped me believe again! Thanks - going to try me best to give it all up! Wish me luck mate!!

[AttyFAM]

by lyonsnyc April 29, 2012 9:54 PM EDT
Nora Volkow believes that drug taking is a disease on the grounds that chronic drug use incapacitates our ability to exert self-control. How can this be? By definition a former drug user is a person who no longer uses drugs, i.e, is a person exerting self-control.
-----------------------------------------------------------

You seem to be wilfully thick-headed. Did you miss the part about the effects of dopamine surge complicated by the reduced number of dopamine receptors as usage of a drug goes on? And, no, a drug user does not become a former drug user by means of will power (in most instances). The drug user goes to detox, is locked in a room for five days or more while withdrawal runs its course (another biochemical brain process) and until the brain can start producing sufficient endorphins on its own that the brain does not need to call for the artificial production by drugs.

[malcolmkyle]

An appeal to all Prohibitionists:

Most of us know that individuals who use illegal drugs are going to get high - no matter what, so why do you not prefer they acquire them in stores that check IDs and pay taxes? Even if we could afford to put Narcs on every single corner, at least half of them would soon become dealers themselves. Gifting the market in narcotics to ruthless criminals, foreign terrorists and corrupt law enforcement officials is seriously compromising our future.

Why do you wish to continue with a policy that has proven itself to be a poison in the veins of our once so proud & free nation? Even if you cannot bear the thought of people using drugs, there is absolutely nothing you, or any government, can do to stop them. We have spent 40 years and trillions of dollars on this dangerous farce; Prohibition will not suddenly and miraculously start showing different results. Do you actually believe you may personally have something to lose If we were to begin basing our drug policy on science & logic instead of ignorance, hate and lies?

Maybe you're a police officer, a prison guard or a local/national politician. Possibly you're scared of losing employment, overtime-pay, the many kick-backs and those regular fat bribes. But what good will any of that do you once our society has followed Mexico over the dystopian abyss of dismembered bodies, vats of acid and marauding thugs carrying gold-plated AK-47s with leopard-skinned gunstocks?

Kindly allow us to forgo the next level of your sycophantic prohibition-engendered mayhem.

Prohibition Prevents Regulation : Legalize, Regulate and Tax!

[parisdakar]

It's more like, if they get bad habits classified as a "disease", that opens up a whole world of drugs that the Pharmas can sell. There's no money to be made from willpower.

[MisterSquash]

ignorance is bliss

[lyonsnyc]

"There's no money to be made from will power." Nice! We understand now why "smoking cessation" products exist. But the best "product" available to quit smoking is "in" one's brain. One only has to employ this "product" in order to achieve the desired result: in this example, a tobacco-free life.